"How is it that in this day and age, with all we know about risk analysis and safety requirements in the workplace, that we still have people like Mr Castillo-Riffo who never get to go home from work?"

Ms Waite said the man had told others he "didn't like" the scissor lift and was "very nervous" about using it in a confined space.

"Decisions to keep the work moving were not uncommon ... workers would be forced to move out of the way of cranes," she said.

The assisting counsel said there was "little wonder Mr Castillo-Riffo had expressed displeasure at his workspace".

"The full extent of the entrapment and crushing risk involved in this work were not recognised at the time of the incident," she said.

"If they had been recognised then one would have hoped that alternatives would have been considered and implemented.

"You might think it would have been reckless to proceed in circumstances where an entrapment risk had been identified."

High-risk work with 'little margin for error'

Ms Waite said the worker was trusted, competent and experienced, and his death occurred during high-risk work.

She said there was little gap between the overhead rail of the lift and a work platform, giving "very little margin for error".

Outside the coronial hearing, CFMEU national secretary Dave Noonan said he hoped the inquest would provide some answers about the tragedy.

"We were shocked and dismayed when the charges were dropped in the industrial court," he said.

"Jorge's widow Pam deserves to know all of the circumstances.

"The public deserves to know all of the circumstances — construction workers who go to work and build South Australia's assets ... need to know what happened here and we need to learn from this and make sure that these tragedies do not keep occurring."

'Justice has escaped Jorge'

Mr Castillo-Riffo's de facto partner Pam Gurner-Hall told the inquest he had spoken to her about his safety concerns and also raised them on site, but had been blacklisted for being too vocal about safety in the past and didn't want to risk not getting hired in future.

She said she was very upset the industrial court proceedings were dropped and wanted safety to be improved at construction sites.

"Justice has escaped Jorge even in his death, I find that one of the saddest and most difficult things I've had to deal with," Ms Gurner-Hall told the inquest.

Ms Gurner-Hall said there should be an engineering solution, such as a sensor, to prevent scissor lifts crashing into obstacles and injuring workers.